I've been pulling nothing but blue orbs from the banner so far, and I'm going to keep doing that since stopping that now would be kinda pointless. I already decided ahead of time I probably wouldn't put anything into last year's brides or whatever the upcoming Legendary is, and since I already have one of each element anyway I'm short one huge incentive to get whoever it ends up being (plus it's probably going to be yet another sword to add onto the pile, I can't think of anyone who could be a red tome or bow unless it ends up being Ylgr who is a wildcard).

As for Faye, I wouldn't waste trying a Brave Bow build on her myself. Her ATK is actually somewhat below average amongst bows so even common archers like Virion (or perhaps more relevantly, Gordin) can outdo her with said build. Her one unique thing is running a weird mixed defenses build which is only outdone by Spooky Jakob, who on the other hand would love that Brave Bow because he can just say "fuck speed" and delete everything by running Bold Fighter. As for adding Faye to the uncommon pool- I'd like to see that happen (alongside some other unimpressive 5* exclusives like Katarina, Jaffar or Luke), but even if they demote some units eventually I won't be surprised if they leave Faye off the list. It probably wasn't the original thought behind it but I'm guessing they'd want to keep Firesweep bow a hard-to-get skill because it's far easier to abuse than the other Firesweep weapons by nature of being 2-range. The other Firesweep weapons need to run Drag Back/H&R to get a similar effect while Bows are free to run Cancel Affinity to ruin the one hard check it would otherwise have.

Also I pulled on the shiny new stances banner and got...a Free Zelgius. -ATK +DEF but regardless I really didn't want to waste my luck on something like this since I didn't even want him, he can't do anything for me unless I magically pull 10 more of him so I can replace the Draug I'm building in my Arena team. Well, he'll make my Armor Brigade better I guess.

I generally just pull every Orb until about 4.0% since its slightly cheaper on the Orbs and if I end up with a pity breaker, oh well. As they say, some days the best way to obtaining a particular unit is through a pity breaker (its worked for me and everyone from Gaiden/Echoes). But that's not for everybody and so on...

My problem with Faye, and really most Archers in Heroes, is that Bows have been on the short end of the 'weapon type with unique effects' stick. While Axes, Daggers, Tomes and Breaths lack Firesweep, Swords and Lances do not, meanwhile Bows don't have anything effective against anything other than Fliers (excepting Bonkers' Prf Bow) and don't have Gemerald Weapons or the like for WT dis/advantage (which makes sense as they sit outside of the Triangle; well, other than Wyndis) even though Raven Tomes can still hit them for WT disadvantage. They also still don't have any Wo Dao-esque weapons yet and everything with an effect beyond these are either Prfs, Seasonal weaponry, the Guard Bow and the now semi-defunct Assassin's Bow.

Also, just as a wild and crazy guess, I'm betting our next Legendary will be one of the Corrins (more likely Male than Female since he's more closely affiliated with Hoshido over Forrin's Nohrian Scum status) or Flier Azura and will sport a Blue Bow (because really, its either them or one of the Niflheim siblings since every other Lord or Lord-alike is more closely affinitied to Fire or one of the off corners of the Magic Triangle like Hector's Thunder, Eliwood's Anima, Eirika's Light or Micaiah's Dark). Mist would be a crack pick simply because she's the only other plot character of significance with a Water Affinity but unless she's a mounted Staffbot, she's mechanically unoptimal, with Ninian and Tiki being less likely still (the former just because she just got an alt; even Windis wasn't that fast of a turnaround; and the latter because she has used an Ice Dragonstone in the past, but its a pretty deep cut and the Kanas kinda beat her to it anyways).

So TL;DR is my guess is Legendary Morrin with Blazing Yato, followed by Golden Kite, Blue Bow Azura.

Edit: Right game, wrong Lord (I was even Class Adjacent, I just forgot that he could make that Reclass on his own). At least Ryoma finally got his Alt (I kinda associated him with Lightning or Fire more than Water, but he IS a Lobster, so you got me there IntSys). He's also getting Guidance and an Inferior Wrath, but he's also our first DC Flier (sans Breath Inheritance) and Red too. Rest of the banner includes Y!Tiki and Sigrud for Reds; Hardin, Santa Robin, and Fjorm for Blue; Chrommas, Airzura and Gunnthra for Green; and Innes, NYTaco and F!Grima for Colorless. Red and Colorless are my safest bets, while I could go for Chrommas (I could use Hardin, but he's not a priority since he's in the draw pool).

I used to use similar logic to justify pulling all 5 orbs every session until I realized that the effects pity rate is actually miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Plus something like half the pity breakers in the game are probably units you’re not terribly interested in getting regardless, so its really just another way they try to trick people into spending more. Only time I open all 5 orbs anymore is when I finally do get a 5* (at which point go ahead and cash in the pity rate) or on legendary banners where pulling like crazy is incentivized.

Speaking of which, memes aside, I’m assuming Ryoma’s water because of thunder-rain connection and maybe a reference to Meikyo Shisui, because they wanted to make sure their flagship samurai character for the franchise would check off every cliche possible. Kinda-wrath on a flier is unique and another flying Legendary is welcome, but he might just be the least interesting Legendary yet. Not that he’s bad, just...above average, basically.

As for the rest of the banner, blue’s probably the most stacked this time around so I’ll probably pick that color for free and pray.

The Tikis are getting a shiny new weapon so probably best to wait for the next New Power banner if you want baby her. Merric and Linde getting another shot is a nice precedent to set, aside from being cool from an in-universe standpoint (Merric not being a flier killer and Linde not using a light tome just feel...wrong), it means units like Seliph might not just be stuck getting sloppy seconds from newer better units now.

Finally, the arena assault changes sound awful.

Anyway I got the weekly orb from arena offense to put me at just 20 orbs, and I finally pulled Eliwood’s waifu. -ATK of course to tank her score and ensure she won’t be doing shit other than dancing, but hey, I got what I wanted so hurray. Now we just need CYL Eliwood in 2019 to be a flier and I’m good to go. The other four summons gave me nothing in return for my poty rate, though they were all 4* so that earns/saves me a few feathers.

Grats on your flying Dancefu. Shame about that -Atk, but Blarblade can do alot for Atk Banes these days (unfortunately her base weapon is actually really nice for buffboting).

As for the Super Samurai, his biggest problem is that Bonkers is a better package and probably should've been a Legendary (although he might still end up with an inflated BST).

The new refines are great because I happen to have a 5 star A!Tiki lying around, plus a 4 star Merric ready to promote to 5 stars if I ever had a reason to do so. Unfortunately, this makes grabbing Y!Tiki off the Legendary banner less of a priority since I'll have two shots at her in the coming days.

As for the AA changes, recent experience reminded me of what an irredeemable shit heap of a mode that mode is. Trying to punch at 680~690 per match is an exercise of wading into the Dolphin pool with all the DC/CC Stance Dragon and/or Bold/Vengeful Armor Emblem + Dancer builds flying around. With my current teams, I can get 3 or 4 matches into said mode before I brickwall and gain nothing for even trying. The Legendary Hero thing is dumb, but could cut down on some of the more bullshit Defensive te....lol, no. I can't even finish that sentence with a straight face. There's no chance AA won't still be a complete shitheap of Whale ass.

Also, the newest VG teams are up and lololol. What a bunch of jobbers. Sharena or Ike will win this barring Mario Kart strats.

Raijinto has basically no synergy with the rest of his kit (unless he has like 30+ res), and getting a discount wrath, while good for a flier, is still very meh overall. Steady breath + wrath vanilla Ryoma is barely scraping by as is among red swords, and this new Ryoma is probably going to be worse in just about every way beyond flier mobility. Even among red fliers he needs to be able to out do quad striking Elincia and Anti armor caeda which he probably can’t do.

Logged

"All those moments will be lost in time... like tears.. in rain" -Roy Batty

I just now noticed that one of the modifications to +_+ is that now they've split the Colorless Crystal rewards between Crystals and Shards (so that players who've been playing since the start and haven't been able to burn Crystals fast enough can finally get something for their efforts on those tiers again; not that'll help given how its going to lead into the exact same problem).

Addendum: Do you suppose that Exp Crystals/Shards will serve as Accessory currency? It would only make the most sense since they're pretty useless outside of pumping fodder units for +10 projects and it'd keep the playing field more level than a brand new currency would (although Arena Coins would also be acceptable given their rate of buildup vs the bottleneck of Poprocks/Xtreme Gamer Forge).

Edit: Kinshyoma's stats are out and he's basically Flying Ryoma with +Spd and -nothing. This means that he's tied with Lon'qu for second highest base Spd in the game right now. It also means that he really doesn't have anything going for him since he doesn't have the defensive stats to DC any more effectively than RyOGma, nor the skills to really leverage his Spd advantage. He could trade his Spd buff for a boon in something else and be no worse for wear, but Ryoma's problem was getting left behind on the powercreep curve and this version isn't addressing that very well. Frankly, all I see him for is filler for my Flier Brigade because there aren't enough Red Fliers yet.

Legendary Banner Edit: 57 Orbs later and I've gotten not one, but two NY Tacos. One's +Res/-HP and the other's +Res/-Atk. Can you spot the one that's going to get gobbled up? As for the rest of this banner, I think I might quit while I'm ahead. I've got 5 outta 12 already, and while Winter Chrom would be nice, there'll be another opportunity for him later. Same with Female Grima and Ryoma+. The rest are in the pool and I can take my time for them. Also busted up Spd Ryoma's Lunatic with my Flier Emblem (they've been pulling their weight and then some; I might switch out Airzura for Brinian though, depends on whether two Hone Fliers are better than a Chill Atk), but I can't kill the enemies in Infernal fast enough.

My free pull on Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad was a 3* Wendy, so I took that to mean I shouldn't even bother. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I've pulled like 20 Wendys already and she still hasn't shown up with a halfway decent IV set.

As for crystals, I hope they don't come up with some secondary use for them, I use mine pretty often now because it saves me the trouble of leveling up a freshly pulled 5* in the middle of a TT or something. That and it's easily the best way to level up a staff. I have doubts they will do anything with them since they still need to keep this game at least somewhat new-player friendly, and shards/crystals are one way to do that.

Grats on your flying Dancefu. Shame about that -Atk, but Blarblade can do alot for Atk Banes these days (unfortunately her base weapon is actually really nice for buffboting).

As for the Super Samurai, his biggest problem is that Bonkers is a better package and probably should've been a Legendary (although he might still end up with an inflated BST).

The new refines are great because I happen to have a 5 star A!Tiki lying around, plus a 4 star Merric ready to promote to 5 stars if I ever had a reason to do so. Unfortunately, this makes grabbing Y!Tiki off the Legendary banner less of a priority since I'll have two shots at her in the coming days.

As for the AA changes, recent experience reminded me of what an irredeemable shit heap of a mode that mode is. Trying to punch at 680~690 per match is an exercise of wading into the Dolphin pool with all the DC/CC Stance Dragon and/or Bold/Vengeful Armor Emblem + Dancer builds flying around. With my current teams, I can get 3 or 4 matches into said mode before I brickwall and gain nothing for even trying. The Legendary Hero thing is dumb, but could cut down on some of the more bullshit Defensive te....lol, no. I can't even finish that sentence with a straight face. There's no chance AA won't still be a complete shitheap of Whale ass.

Also, the newest VG teams are up and lololol. What a bunch of jobbers. Sharena or Ike will win this barring Mario Kart strats.

Yeah, I'm going to be sticking with Ninian's default weapon (already refined it in fact). If you give her Fortify Fliers and the Hone Attack seal she becomes an all-stat buffbot on a flier team which is pretty neat (unfortunately Ninian is also my first ranged flier so I don't have another flying mage to abuse a Bladetome with it). Besides, giving bladetomes to tome dancers is a waste IMO, they should be built to counter specific things to make up for their abysmal BST but otherwise stay out of combat. Both my PA Inigo and Shigure have TA and Inigo has Gronnraven+Bowbreaker for obvious reasons, while I haven't completely decided on what to give Shigure.

The funny thing about AA is that in some ways it's been getting easier as I merge up my armors more (my score range is around 724-732). Standard Horsecancer is actually getting pretty rare for me (but I still run into it occasionally and it's still the team most prone to ending my run), but super beefed up armor emblem is a real terror, especially fucking Zelgius if he's coming at you with both Steady Breath and Bold Fighter. That Micaiah I pulled last Legendary banner is a real godsend, but I only have one of her. Tobin does some work too.

And I dunno what the hell they're thinking with the new VG with those choices. It's really obvious Ike is just going to curbstomp everyone into oblivion barring multiplier shenanigans.

Battled the Samurai Supreme, Ryoma Strange in the Infernal Wars with Captain ATiki, Iron Nowi, Black Azura and one of the Guardians of the Etruria (if they're going to throw 10+ units into my lap on turn 3, then I'm not going to play fair either).

Hopefully that upcoming Heroes and Legends quest collection doesn't involve having Female Grima, Golden Kinshi, or Vanilla Ike/Ryoma/Lyn as I don't have them yet (or hopefully we'll have friend allies to act as substitutes).

As for the VG, I've joined team Ike despite the fact that he is the 900lb gorilla in the room and thus his team will basically never get a multiplier.

My issue with Crystals/Shards is that you don't get enough SP just by cranking up a unit's level to 40. To me, they're much more useful on bringing up a unit who recently merged into one of your regulars due to superior traits. But I usually mess around with Trait manipulation at 4 stars since it doesn't cost me 20k feathers every time I want to make an adjustment and then I only need to drop only about 5k Shards at most into them to get them up to 20.

Edit: I chose, poorly...

Double Edit: And I cannot get a unit off this Legendary banner not named Takumi (+Atk/-Res; might as well just stick with my +Res/-HP one). Good fucking Naga.

VG Zeroes and Losers Edit: And there goes the 300 pound gorilla. Now its between the inferior sibling and a roast. I'm thinking of joining team Alfonse, not because of the quest that demands that I use him, but because I have a sneaking suspicion that he's going to win it at last (also, something something, mercing for feathers, something). Also FE7's getting more love in the form of the other Hurricane, a Nino Alt, and the Nadir of female swordmasters everywhere. Also also the Brothers Stonkfaced will soon be reunited. Also also also, Nino's future husband is also on board and is likely either going to be the next +_+ or GCN reward.

Canas is heavily implied to be Nino's uncle, but I guess this is Fire Emblem so I understand the confusion. Also I hate that Canas is going to be coming with Rauorowl, they really should've thought of a better way to make the thing more common than sticking it on a limited unit (plus he'll likely come with some other elusive skill you'd prefer to sacrifice him for). Wish they gave him Rauorserpent instead to reference how Shamans tended to be sturdier in FE7. Or give him some crazy Luna PRF to reference how stupidly broken he was with that thing.

Anyway a FE7 banner would seem to support the idea that the next Legendary's going to be Hector. We know it'll be Green at least, anything else is up in the air. An armor would make sense though since we still need one of those (surprised there hasn't been one already since armors are the magic whale bait in this game). If it ends up being Hector they should just have a Legendary banner at some point where all 3 Green Focuses are Hectors.

Also I joined in with Alfonse. At least he's kinda relevant sometimes as opposed to a character who was conceived as a way to make lots of whale cash and then unceremoniously killed off to justify not giving out a free copy of her.

Please, no more hectors. He's gonna get a CYL alt anyways, and he has an OP enough valentines alt lmao.

On that note, Karla is gonna be interesting seeing as how, unless IS has fucked with the demo vids, she appears to have roughly 40~ base attack. I wonder how much physical damage is really needed until red swords can pass the Ayra bar lol.

Logged

"All those moments will be lost in time... like tears.. in rain" -Roy Batty

Hector almost certainly will get a Legendary version eventually IMO. If it's any consolation, at least with Hector you can have some variety since they'll probably use epic beard Hector (the CYL win went to young Hector so I doubt they'll stick the beard on that one). If characters like Roy, Eirika or Corrin got legendaries they'll probably be as bland as the Ryoma one.

And there's no way for them to powercreep Ayra unless they massively inflate BST again at some point or come up with another broken PRF special. Ayra's good stats are the cherry on top of Regnal Astra, which is what makes Ayra so broken, just like how Black Luna is what makes Zelgius stupidly overpowered. I mean, the fact that Slaying Edge is considered Ayra's best weapon just says it all.

The biggest thing to look forward to from this banner is that we'll very likely get a demoted Legault. Alongside the previously demoted Ares it's nice they're adding more variety to the 4* skill pool, but they have a ridiculous amount of catchup to do. Double stats (ie ATK/SPD+2 etc), Bonds, Stances, Wind/Watersweep and Guard shouldn't be 5* locked IMO. Shield Pulse probably shouldn't either, but barely anybody uses it either way (aside from Fjorm who comes packaged with it).

@Hathen: You're right about the Canas thing. I mixed up Lugh with Hugh, and misremembered Nino's ending blurb thinking it stated that she died in a snowstorm as well.

Also, Watersweep and Guard aren't locked to 5 star units (or are you referring to their 3rd tiers?) as both Soren and Titania have them. Additionally, L'Arachel has Res Tactic which Legault's Atk Tactic may join if he gets demoted. If they really wanted to fix skill access, they should really go through the 5 star pool and demote some stinkers like Mist, Saber, Leo and maybe Jaffar (you'd get Spur Def/Res 1, either HP/Spd 2 or Shield Pulse 3, another possible source of LoD3 and either Savage Blow 3 or Quick Riposte 3).

Still, it would be funny if it was Karla who ended up being demoted as she is currently the 3rd least popular character from FE7 in FEH (only ahead of Linus and Bartre, lol). I could see nobody getting demoted as well though, so I'll take Legault with gusto if it comes down to it (I feel like the Ares thing was because it was between him, a Dancer and the Waifu of Thunder). But having even Wrath 2 would be sweet to have, nevermind Even Spd Wave 3.

As for the current Zeroes and Losers VG, I feel like Alfonse has the superior chance to win it all since Team Gunnthra ain't getting shit for multipliers while Alfonse gets like 3 or 4 in a row. So long as Team Gunnthra doesn't get a multiplier within the last 2 or 3 hours, Team Alfonse has a pretty fair chance to win on the sly (although it'd be hella funny to watch both teams enter into Same Hell for more than a single round, trying to out-maneuver each other).

As for next Legendary speculation, we just had a Thunder Legendary for Water so a second one for Fire is too soon. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if its Eliwood's time to shine (his one alt is rather blah), Anima affinity be dammed.

There is also another crack theory that we're only getting one Legendary per mainline game and not just Lords + OCs. That would be about 13 characters (this would work out to be FEs 1-10 + Awakening, Birthright and Conquest with Xander countering Ryoma's entry and Kris for New Mystery rather than 2 Legendary Marths). That would unfortunately mean that neither Hector or Eliwood would get a Legendary version nor Eirika nor whichever of either Alm or Celica (I'd bet on Celica considering that we already have two of her with a third one on the way versus our one Alm, plus he'd be a natural Red Archer). It'll also mean that we'll be seeing a third OC Legendary (possibly one of the remaining Nifl siblings).

Edit: Why the fuck are we in Same Hell again? Why the flaming fuck are we in SAME HELL AGAIN!?! Zeroes and Losers sums this whole goddamn mode up perfectly at this point.

Edit: Big fucking WELP!

Seriously, never fucking bet on a >=7.0x multiplier.

Updatdit: 2.6.0 is out and the changes are, in all honestly, fairly mediocre. The biggest positive change is the increase to SP at level up (for example a level 26 character would've gotten about 18 SP per level, but now gets 36 SP per level; this is enough of a general change that a Level 1 Caeda, with 80 SP from a merge, can be raised to Level 20, promoted, and immediately afford her Wing Sword upgrade). As for the new weapons, Tikis gain Falchion Breath, Merric finally has a version of Excalibur that has the Killer effect that every other version of his particular version of Excalibur has, and Linde has hijacked Eirika's Bladetome Harem. The accessories are basically there to eventually be monetized but its nice that I can stick Bruno's Mask on top of Legions' Mask. The newest labels on the Home screen further clutter up the joint, while all the character advancement stuff is buried within more menus which you still have to switch around to navigate (its mostly fine, but having to check to see if a Staffbot can use a Fortress Def/Res seal so that you know whether or not to inherit a Seth on them or something is kinda annoying). They also introduced a bug that makes people think they can get a second round of rewards from the Tappa! Tappa! Tappa! mode, when all it really did was lock players out of access to the sound samples/hot spring they had already unlocked.

Additionally, they're offering freebie 3 Star Roy, Barst, Tailtiu and Kaze (the latter two being significant due to the former not being available at 3 stars and the latter being an Event Only repeat secretly added to the Summoning Pool).

As for the newest banner, my draw was 1 Blue Orb and 4 Colorless Orbs, and with Legault looking most likely to demote, I took my freebie 4 star Saizo (I've got 12 of these motherfuckers; send help) and bailed. I then proceeded back to the Brides banner for another attempt a Goth Bride and landed a 4 star Caeda with +Atk/-HP instead (among other things like a Roderick and another -Atk Mathilda).

As for the story, its great that we get this immediately after Gunnthra's win in the VG, lol.

I know I shouldn't expect that much out of the story in a kusomobage, but FEH just has some of the laziest writing I've ever seen. We only really get 2 actual story chapters every month (since the three in between usually are just the new heroes introducing themselves) and it feels like something an 8 year old would write the night before his assignment was due. It's really fucking bad when you can favorably compare Garon to the villain you've created.

Also not sure what to think of Tiki's new weapon. It does have its niche uses which I guess is the most you can expect when you're competing with inbuilt Distant Counter, or if the rest of your Dragon team is running Lightning Breath so you can do without one unit not running it. Linde and Merric seem to have their tomes built to be run alongside each other if you totally ship that, although Merric is probably still kinda underwhelming thanks to his horrible stat spread.

Kaze being stuck in the summoning pool is an interesting precedent. Of course Kaze was kind of a special case to begin with since GC hasn't had any free units since him, so who knows if it indicates GHB or TT units might make it into the summoning pool eventually. If it happens Red orbs become even more bloated (and summoning Masked Marth will be endlessly frustrating). Even without that Kaze is a really nice addition to the pool, Attack Smoke at 4* and finally a dagger worth inheriting in the regular pool (Poison Dagger really deserves refine options at this point).

Also Canas is terriawful. He's got some nice art but otherwise he's Raigh with some extra RES, and Raigh is in the running for units most in need of a new weapon alongside Rebecca and Matthew (who are all one tier above Odin of course). Unimpressive passive skills too so I guess he'll be eaten for Raourowl after all.

I'm more worried about seeing this kind of writing in whatever FE they reveal next Tuesday. I mean, look at Fates and how it basically managed similar feats of craptacular plot beats. I could've accepted having Loki or Laevatine or Laegjarm be the auxiliary big bad or even Veronica/Bruno popping up outta nowhere to seize the reigns of this showboat, instead of the "Lol, nope." that we got. Even better though is that yeah, the game just told us to stop sending girls to do a man's job. If I catch this kind of crap in FE Switch, I might just wash my hands of the series altogether because I fled to this series back in the day from the very same crap Final Fantasy's stable of protagonists' waifus and non-sexual child characters was doing (a very similar issue I have to SMT/Persona and a number of other long running JRPG series). The only real good that came of this chapter was the Chaos Dunking on Gunnthra's noble sacrifice two days after her winning the Heroes and Legends VG (because nothing good came of that shitheap beyond the timing of this). Well, okay. That and having the stage with Reinforcements actually all be summonable characters (and Surtr).

The problem with Tiki's weapon is that Lightning Breath++ is right there. Yeah, it has a bunch of downsides compared to Breath of Fog's superior Mt, lack of a Special Charge penalty, built in Renewal and Dragon Effectiveness; but LB++ doesn't require giving up your A skill slot for DC, which means that you can run a Stance and make up the Special penalty in spades. The Dragon Effectiveness also runs into the issue of sharing its color with almost every other Anti-Dragon weapon out there, so its real niche is hitting Res at Rng 1 versus the typically superior Def.

Merric's biggest problem is the sheer demand for Mtn. Dew compared to what little his latest forge offers him.

And Linde's biggest problem is simply availability. Also I wouldn't ship her and Merric because both are already spoken for (Merric to Sister Elice, and Linde to recently widowed Nyna).

As for Masked Marth in the generic summoning pool, I'd lol. Namely because at that point the only difference between her him and Lucina would be the effort between obtaining Aether versus obtaining merges.

And yeah, I'm ensaddened by the lack of anything acknowledging Canas' hella busted Luna (especially since it was the one really fun toy the game ever gives you, everything else is either too rare, too late or both to matter).

Edit: New calendar is up. Basically more of the same really. They're not even bothering with displaying Tappa Emblem anymore since the mode seems to be perpetual. Also get your Olivers and Lyons ready for their ReGHeBs. Hector and Matthew will be having their BHeB later in the month as well. Also also, be ready for more bikinis and swim trunks (and a couple Legendaries between Canas and Fall; ugh).

And while I'm here, I finally managed to snag myself a Goth Bride. +Spd/-Atk. The bane sucks, but she's not getting doubled anytime soon.

One week and change later edit: Oliver's ReGHeB is now done and dusted (all I needed was to give Lilina Axebreaker 1 to deal with the initial Axe Infantry). This round's +_+ is pretty easy but sucks for Autobattle (too many Mages with Nino, Niniair, Sanaki and Linus; too many instances of the autobat AI going 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' on the weakest opponent that can still counterattack it can find while leaving units wide open to melee retaliation from three enemies of the opposite color). New silhouettes are up and are definitely Summer editions (I want to say they're Ephraim and Eirika, but I doubt they'd have Ephraim wield a Lance again; and the male is too tall to be Roy, has hair too long to belong to Ike, Eliwood, Marth or Lief and has hair too short to be Seliph, Ryoma or Takumi; plus we've already had a Ylissian Summer and a Nohian Scummer; so maybe Summer Sigurd and Dierdre perhaps, or alternatively Tana and Innes? or god help us, we're looking at some 3H reps already nevermind, art got leaked and its totally Tana and Innes, also Noire and Cody mk3; also also dat flag is an Axe? and everybody's on a mount save Noire, with Tana as our second flying Red Tome user for more Flying Emblem shenanigans).

The first summer banner was leaked for real, and we're getting yet another alt-first character in Noire, yet another Cordelia, and the Frelia siblings. Innes appears to be an axe flier (can't imagine a flag being anything else), Cordelia's a horse lance because we totally needed more of those, Noire's another colorless infantry bow (don't get why they didn't take the opportunity to make her another color), and Tana is a Red tome flier. Tana seems to be the winner of the banner with what seems like a Prf tome, while the rest get a +2 all stats on initiation weapon.

I'm telling my orb hand stay down for the moment though, the upcoming Hector/Matthew BHB means I'll have a chance at Hector sooner than I thought. Got about 230 orbs so far which gives me a decentish chance to get at least one of the guy- assuming whatever Legendary that comes before that doesn't get me to splurge. On that note, with Matthew getting a BHB I'm going to guess he's up for the refinery in a July update. Out of all the daggers in the game, he probably needs it the most (well, arguable whether him or Jakob is worse).

As for the new +_+, I've been autobattling Hard 30 for the most part- this one's pretty unforgiving even with me using 3 bonus units (Canas, Karel, and 4* Linus). I already capped HM on Jaffar, but not before giving him the Mountain Dew upgrade. Worth it IMO, I think the guy's underrated as hell on all the tier lists, he's a great unit to have for Arena Assault and a real cheesy character for Rival Domains-style maps. Anyway, Live to Serve as a seal is actually pretty nice, but it feels a bit too niche to justify upgrading. Same with Earth Dance. Res Tactic has its obvious uses though.

Also tangentially related but I might as well post it here- I've been playing through PoR so soon I can bellyache about which of my favorite units aren't included in Heroes too. So far I have to say Astrid is probably on my list since I was saving my BEXP like everyone saves Elixirs in a FF game, so once I got Astrid the game has basically been over. Probably the only Est I've played with who isn't completely underwhelming.

Yeah, Astrid's amazing in PoR. Especially if you go Axes on her promotion since nobody cares about Weight in this game (except Mages but they suck even without Wt bullshit) and you can give her a Forged Steel Axe right out of the gate. And that Knight's Ward is complete and utter bullshit (since it secretly contains a +30% Spd growth boost which everybody wants, but only Knights, Soldiers and Armors can equip). It also helps that she's by far the most usable Bow user in the game.

Astrid in RD took one of the largest nerfs in the series and went from being amazing to trash due to horrible availability, savaged growth rates, terrible bases and caps, the game's hate boner for Horses, Marksmen existing, Gatrie stealing the Knight's Ward to graft onto his Armor for a permanent Spd growth boost, and becoming Makalov's beloved. I don't even think Midia was bodied by the Nerf bat this badly (I mean unless you go from FE1 to New Mystery or something, but that is kinda cheating due to how she just got progressively worse as time wore on).

Also, hopefully you're aware of Stefan and his ridiculous recruitment requirements in the Desert chapter.

Most of the griping about Tellus inclusions in FEH comes from the current lack of non-Dragon formshifting characters in general since that constitutes a large percentage of Tellus characters as well as some of the most popular Fateslandia characters still not in the game yet (also Panne and Yarne). As for my own inclusion bellyache, it comes from the lack of Lucia since I like her even if she got pretty badly screwed over in both Tellus games.

Back onto the subject of FEH, I don't know what's worse. Noire as done by Rob Leifield or the fact that she's armed with a lovely bunch of coconuts (diddle le dee). At least Tana stayed on team cuboon so she's easily the top prize for that alone. Kinda disappointed in Ylisse getting in on the Summer banner again though (even though we did get 2 of the top 8 for Summer Alts this time).